Contact details

Wednesday, 24 September 2014

Greens call on UK Govt to put pressure on Turkey to cease its continued tacit support for ISIS in Syria

The Green Party has today called on the UK government to use their influence to bring pressure on Turkey to end its continued tacit support for ISIS’s campaign in Syria.

Green Party Leader Natalie Bennett said: “The UK government cannot stand by and see innocents denied safe passage and refuge. We must be at the forefront of putting pressure on Turkey to support International efforts to prevent constrain and eventually destroy ISIS.”

“The Green Party has always been clear in saying that the long term answer to this horrendous ongoing genocide lies not with Western military intervention on the ground but in the wider International community assisting the states and peoples of the region to defend themselves and bring relief to the ever growing number of refugees displaced by the fighting.

“It is therefore not acceptable for a nation like Turkey to actively working against this goal and being seen to be part of the problem rather than providing logistical and real support to the innocent civilian populations who border onto their territory and fleeing for their lives”

The call comes at a time when 70,000 Kurdish Syrians have fled the Kobane region under fire from advancing ISIS forces leading to Turkey closing its border to innocents looking for refuge and shelter.

Kurds from throughout the region including 3,000 fighters from the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) based in Iraq’s Qandil mountains are reported to be crossing from Iraq into Syria and heading for Kobane to defend the 2.5m civilian Kurdish population in the Kobane region and halt ISIS’s advances.

Green Party International Spokesperson and former Labour MP Tony Clarke said: "While it is vital to give solidarity to the Kurds and others opposing the so-called Islamic State, Western intervention has failed time after time and will only lead to more chaos."

It is also widely rumoured that Turkey has released 180 ISIS detainees in response to the release by ISIS of 49 Turkish citizens held hostage in Mosul. Turkey continues to refuse to support international coalition efforts to stop ISIS’s campaign to establish a Caliphate in land currently belonging to Syria and Iraq.